I will eat my hat

At a lurch

It’s too much, 410 seats. With that majority, to call His Majesty’s Opposition opposition is a joke. There is no satisfactory means to hold the government to account, and that is tantamount to dictatorship.

We hear from all corners of the western world how democracy is under threat, that we must secure our freedoms (read: the freedoms of our masters to subjugate us). Well, a party that rules in the mother of parliaments with not just a working but an outlandishly enormous majority is a dictator. Ironically, our trend to embrace negotiation seeks out consensus. With consensus we have a win-win situation, in which everyone gains a little, everyone loses a little, and everyone is basically happy. Who doesn’t want consensus?

Well, consensus is a chicken way out. Because it assumes that, without consensus, there will be fighting in the streets. That’s the big benefit that consensus brings. Do we fear fighting in Britain’s streets? Perhaps we do, but I don’t think we’re quite at that stage yet. Then, if the consensus is built on everyone, or all but everyone, being of a like mind, what harm, then, is there in that? None whatsoever. Except that this is not such a case. This consensus is a general agreement on one matter only: to dislike the Conservatives. It is not consensus on what the Labour party stand for. And I really wonder what it is that the Labour party stand for that the Conservatives didn’t.

For every landslide that fills a valley, there’s a mountain top that’s that bit shorter. This has not been a landslide in favour of the Labour party; it has been a landslide away from the Conservatives. Because, mark my words, before long, there will be voices raised at the more substantive policies pursued by Sir Keir. In them, there is no consensus. His organisation has expunged from its midst the dissenting voices, in a manner that already smacks of dictatorship, and Starmer’s cooing towards the business interests shows him to be as much of a cronyist and Thatcherite as the Tories that preceded him were. This landslide might have made a hell of a ruction, but nothing has changed in the UK. Brexit still means Brexit, privatisation still—for now—means privatisation (except where the nationalisation of Thames Water will see the state assume the outrageous liabilities of a PLC that paid itself millions while neglecting its duty to the public water courses in its charge), and immigration is no less of an issue than it was before, as Clacton-On-Sea’s 99 vendors know to their benefit. In fact we wait to see what change will come in policy on Palestine. Don’t hold your breath if you think British arms will no longer be sent to Israel. Perhaps a shipment might be held up for a week, à la Biden. That’s gonna be it.

Nobody needs to delude themselves into the notion that we now have a Benthamite Utopia in the UK. He has one hundred days; they end on 12 October. If we have felt a lurch to the left by then, you may be assured, I will eat my hat, and be splayed on the floor eating it, so sudden and unexpected a lurch that will be.